Let's Play a Game
by Angel Ayami
Summary: "...A betting game to be exact with a great reward in it for the winner while the loser does what the winner wants." It's always all fun and games before someone gets attatched to a target. White JokerxOC Don't like? Don't read! T for language.


Joker/Clover/Heart no Kuni no Alice one-shot

Pairing: White JokerxOC

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Heart no Kuni characters, they are copyright of Quinrose. Sage though is my own.

Summary: With the season of summer abound, Sage finds herself rather alone with everyone else being busy with their own personal matters. Hanging out at the circus with Joker though is all fun and games until someone is pinned to a target.

By: Angel Ayami

A/N: I know, I know, having an OC in something like this is very weird and most likely not a lot will read it, but I thought this up while I was at school and thought it would be fun. So, haters stay clear, for those who don't mind please read on.

_Let's Play a Game_

It was summertime in the Country of Hearts, butterflies were fluttering around the roses and wildflowers, bees were buzzing and collecting pollen for honey, trees were luscious and green, and the warm rays of the sun tended to bake whatever poor soul was caught under its light. Most people would usually stay inside on weather like this, but there was one place that was getting a lot of business-the Circus. A circus was nestled in the middle of a clearing surrounded by a lot of trees, but a path always led customers right to it; after all who could resist the temptation of magic tricks and animal stunts?

Under a tree in cool shade was Sage, her platinum blonde hair tied back in a braid due to the weather being so warm today. She carried no interest in really going into the circus tent as non-role holders stepped inside to catch the upcoming show. She rather chose to sit outside, enjoy nature, and a good book sitting in her lap titled 'The Hobbit' by J.R.R. Tolkien. Funny how a book store in such an odd place kept a book she loved dearly back in London (A/N: She was born in America, but moved from the Netherlands to England). Her bright green colored eyes were scanning the pages with a gentle ease as she read the passages.

_"From these he had got news: the goblin patrols were still hunting with Wargs for the dwarves, and they were fiercely angry because of the death of the Great Goblin, and also because of the burning of the chief wolf's nose and the death from the wizard's fire of many of his chief servants. So there was more wickedness than this afoot, and that a great raid of the whole goblin army with their wolf-allies into the lands shadowed by the mountains might soon be made to find the dwarves, or to take vengeance on the men and creatures that lived there, and who they thought must be sheltering them." _(A/N: A small piece I took from the actual book. It's not my own work with this.)

Before she could continue on however, a darker shadow loomed over the pages of the book, distracting Sage from any further reading. She noticed the shadow had the image of a young man, wearing a jester style of a hat atop his head. It was the one who ran the circus; Joker. "Good day to you, Sage." He spoke staring down at her with a smile across his lips.

"Yeah, good fucking day bitch." A small white mask responded on his waist sounding very pissed off as always. "Shouldn't you be working instead of socializing you bloody ass-." The Joker laughed a little and covered the mouth of the mask. The one standing before Sage was White Joker, but the darker side of him, the voice coming from the mask on the waist was from Black Joker.

"Joker," Sage addressed back, nodding her head, "good afternoon to you and your other counterpart."

"Heh, my apologies for Black's absurd rudeness so suddenly, he gets that way from time to time." White Joker chuckled, smiling kindly to the girl in the grass, hand still covering up the muffled string curses coming from Black.

"It's all right, I'm old enough to hear cursing," she closed up her book and stretched a little for a moment, "but perhaps he's correct? Shouldn't you be working?"

This inquiry about working made Joker laugh lightly and gaze down at her, his hand that covered Black's words was removed to rub the back of his neck softly. "For once the bitch makes sense." Black snapped out the moment he was free. "Get to work you lazy ass fucker." (Ayami: Black why must you swear so much?)

"I will, I will. Calm yourself or else you'll start getting an ulcer." White chuckled again. "I just came to see how Sage was doing. She looked rather lonely today." He was speaking to Black now, not at all sounding annoyed at his counterpart's lovely choice of words.

"I'm okay." The said girl responded, looking up into Joker's eyes for a moment, that crimson pool of his visible eye almost drawing her in. "Everyone else was rather busy today, so I chose to take some time and catch up on some reading."

"Reading? That sounds like something good to do, but wouldn't you rather want to be doing something else?" he replied, tilting his head a little. It looked to be a questioning look with his gaze.

"Something else, like what?" asked Sage as she stood up, holding the book in her hand.

"Hm…I don't know. Let's play a game."

"What kind of game?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Joker cheered happily, putting his hands together as he gazed down at her. "It's a betting game to be exact with a great reward in it for the winner while the loser does what the winner wants." He smiled slightly resting a finger on his cheek and tapping it thoughtfully, waiting for Sage's response.

"Well then Joker, what are the stakes? What will I get if I win, or what would you get if you win?" Sage asked and it seemed to be the right question because White's smile seemed to grow wider.

"Another great question!" he grinned, seeming quite pleased all of a sudden.

"Will you shut the fuck up and get it over with?" Black questioned impatiently and White gave a sigh and covered up the other's words again.

"Alright Sage, let's say if you win…I get to do whatever you say for an entire day. If I win however, the reward I get will be a surprise to you. If you lose you have to commit to it as will I if I lose."

"Well that doesn't sound too hard," she nodded crossing her arms and raising a curious brow now, "what form is the game? Is it a game of cards?"

"Nope." He shook his head his smile turning into a light smirk as he reached an arm over and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Come with me." Joker began to steer Sage towards the inside of the tent.

"God, fuck my life!" shouted Black as White took her into the confines of the tent among a cheering crowd.

(Page Break)

"Good day ladies and gentleman!" Joker called as he spread his arms wide amongst the crowd of cheering, faceless, comers. "Today I bring you a most glorious show! To start it off though, I have a lovely lady right here." He gestured to Sage, who was standing frozen beside him…she had an issue with people staring at her. "She and I have chosen to play a betting game, with only one could be a winner and the other is the loser. To clarify to her question of what the game IS…" he paused for dramatic effect before pulling out five, sharp, silver, daggers, and a chill went down the girl's spine. "I have here five daggers, I will have my lovely assistant here become strapped to that target," Joker pointed to a large orange and green colored target with shackles on the top for wrists and two on the lower part for the ankles to be put against, "and I will toss each dagger in hopes that I miss her. If I do, I win the game. However, if I so much as form a single scratch or cut a single strand of hair from her precious head, not only will I have lost, but could also hurt her. To make it interesting though, I will be attempting this feat, blindfolded!" he called out to the audience, who seemed to roar in excitement at the thought.

"Wait, wait! Joker are you insane?" Sage questioned as she gripped some of his sleeve, obviously unnerved that THIS was the GAME they were betting on. "This is a game of chance! What if I really do get hurt?"

"Not to worry, I'm sure we would have you fixed up in a jiffy." He waved over to two faceless children, who worked as circus performers, to take Sage over and strap her to the target. Reluctantly she followed and let them put her against the target, she was never one to really back out from a challenge. Though now she really questioned herself on why she was here in the first place.

Oh yeah…

Blood was busy with territory negotiations,

Alice was hard at work to help Julius,

Dee and Dum were forced to stay on guard duty,

Elliot was keeping a close eye on Dee and Dum,

Boris was chasing Pierce around god knew where,

Pierce was trying to outrun Boris,

Gowland was working on "perfecting" his musical "talent",

Peter was stalking Alice,

Vivaldi was…being the queen,

Ace was off getting lost somewhere,

And Julius was working up at the Clock Tower.

"Yeah…that about sums it up…" Sage murmured to herself as she watched Joker pull a black strip of cloth from his sleeve and tie it around his eyes for a moment before picking up the daggers. "Oh god why me…" she spoke softly.

"Now, absolute silence…" Joker spoke to the crowd in a calm tone and the crowd hushed entirely, some sitting at the edge of their seats as they watched. The girl attached to the target swallowed hard as she watched while Joker had one dagger, tip of the blade between his thumb and forefinger, pull his arm back and gave it a toss. The metal from the dagger shone brilliantly as the blade came spinning, spinning, and spinning towards the target. Sage squeezed her eyes shut, fearing the impact.

THUNK!

The sound of the first dagger hitting the target made her jump slightly and open one eye before breathing a sigh of relief, the dagger's blade had missed her arm by a few inches. However, Joker still had four more to go.

THUNK!

Dagger struck into wood again, this time barely missing her underarm.

THUNK!

The third nearly struck her left wrist.

THUNK!

A bead of sweat formed on Sage's forehead, for the fourth dagger was right next to her head, making her swallow heavily and looking towards the Joker. Still one dagger left, this one decided the winner of it. If Joker missed this last shot, and if he hit her, she would win. Joker, still blindfolded, held the last dagger, pulled his arm back and gave it a good, strong throw.

THUNK!

The sound seemed to echo in a lot of ears due to the silence and Sage glanced over, gulping, the last dagger was inches away from a jugular vein in her neck, missed her hair, and skin, but was still threateningly close. One of the faceless circus children went to inspect for any blood or scratches before calling out. "She's unharmed!"

Uproars of cheering came from the audience as Joker removed the blindfold, grinning with a fair amount of triumph while the children brought Sage down. The girl staggered a little towards Joker, obviously a bit in shock. However, she did not say a word to him as she wobbled out of the tent.

"Nice going fucktard, how could you miss?" Black snapped at White, furiously annoyed on how he could miss on such an easy target.

"Well I didn't want to lose now did I?" replied White with a smile as he held his arms up and bowed to the crowd.

"Whatever, stupid…"

The rest of the circus performance went upon schedule and ended almost an hour to an hour and a half later. Crowds of people were coming out of the tent, talking and laughing about what they liked about the performance. Sage was sitting behind a tree out of sight, trying to relax herself from the combination of adrenaline rush and fear of what Joker had put her through.

"Hello~!" he spoke as he peered behind the tree, smiling a little happily.

Speak of the devil. "What was the big idea of that stunt?" she questioned hotly, wanting to desperately slap that smile right off his face. "You could have killed me! Your last dagger was very, VERY close to my jugular vein!"

"But I didn't kill you now did I?" he asked tilting his head, frowning. "You're unharmed, without a scratch."

"Yeah…tell that to my damaged nerves." She rolled her eyes. "So, you won big deal. What did you want for winning anyways?" she asked, but when she did Joker moved his body to be in front of her, kneeling down so his face was level with hers.

"I'll show you, but you have to close your eyes." He blinked and chuckled when she looked at him skeptically. "Haha, don't worry, I promise there isn't anything I have on hand that could do any harm to you, so just close your eyes."

Sage gave a small sigh and closed her eyes, thinking it was best to get it over with. What she didn't expect was Joker's warm breath to be so close, nor his lips to suddenly be on hers! Her eyes widened a little and she felt her heart pick up a couple of beats. Though no matter how strange the feeling was…it felt…nice in a way. Slowly he pulled away, smiling lightly,

"I win." He chuckled. To his own surprise, Sage's face was cherry red, but she was smiling a little before giggling softly.

"Yes…yes you did. You feel satisfied now?"

"I am, but can I do it again?" He asked curiously.

"Eh…why the hell not." She shrugged and Joker smiled kindly, bringing her close before his lips lightly covered hers again, but not before murmuring softly against them,

"Let's play again sometime…"

The End

Yay, the end of my first one-shot, which came out almost exactly the way I imagined it to be! So everyone knows, I haven't experienced the Joker no Kuni or Clover no Kuni game so I was just going with my gut from other fanfics I've read about how Black and White Joker were to act. I hope you all enjoyed, and who knows, if you all like it, I may work on my BorisxOC chapter fic sometime, not to mention this was typed out pretty quick. For now, this is Angel Ayami, saying goodbye and hope everyone likes it and leaves a review!


End file.
